Historical situation: profound discontent because of the political situation and the acceleration of history between 1789 and 1848 and as a result:

– A feeling of frustration, inability to modify the course of events.
– A feeling of decline, of the end of things.

Social situation: the young Romantics feel isolated, maladjusted, and live spiritually on the edge of society, at times combating it, with no solid intellectual or moral support.

In France, as a result of the social upheaval since 1789, the Romantics have nothing in common with the two preceding generations.

The Napoleonic epic and myths that it has produced further enhance their nostalgia.

Gros, 1801 - Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole

Girodet, 1801 - Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes

Gros, 1804 - Bonaparte Visiting the Pesthouse in Jaffa

Gros, 1808 - Napoleon Bonaparte on the Battlefield of Eylau

Géricault, 1812 - An Officer of the Imperial Horse Guards Charging

Géricault, 1814 - The Wounded Cuirassier

– Taking refuge in dreams, in the "ME".
– An attitude of uncertainty, often pessimistic even of despair.
– Melancholy with neither rime nor reason, non-remediable, called "the scourge of the age"
– The feeling of being damned, marked by fate.
– Propensity to cry.

Friedrich, 1822 - Woman at a Window

Chassériau - Sappho Leaping into the Sea

Fuseli, 1794 - Solitude at Dawn

 Delacroix, 1838 - Frédéric Chopin

Goethe, 1774 - Werther

Friedrich, 1810 - The Abbey in the Oakwood

 Friedrich, 1822 - Raven tree

Wolf, 1778 - Geltenbachfall in Winter

Friedrich, 1818 - Woman before the Setting Sun

Friedrich, 1824 - Trees in the moonlight

Friedrich, 1812 - Cross and Cathedral in the Mountains